1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to commercial food preparation and packaging and more particularly to a method for cooking and packaging bakery goods.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The conventional method for commercially baking and packaging individual bakery items such as cupcakes and muffins includes placing fluted paper liners or cups into individual molds of metal baking pans, usually having 36 molds per pan. A predetermined amount of batter is poured into each liner and the pans are placed in an oven heated to about 325.degree. F - 350.degree. F for baking for about 12-15 minutes. The pans are then removed from the oven and carried to racks for an allotted cooling period. After cooling the pans are taken to a moving conveyor onto which the cupcakes or muffins are dumped, inspected, and iced. They are then lifted from the conveyor manually and individually placed into cartons for merchandising to the consumer.
After dumping the cupcakes or muffins, the baking pans are stacked and carried by hand to an area where they are inspected, washed, and prepared for further use.
The above process requires a high amount of labor and involves considerable handling of the individual baked goods resulting in significant rejection and undesirable exposure to contamination. It would be desirable, therefore, to eliminate individual handling of the bakery items as well as the operations involved in recycling the metal baking pans.
Other processing systems in the food handling art are described in the following U.S. patents. U.S. Pat. No. 2,761,785 to S. B. Steger shows an open-ended frozen food carton, having openings for paper cups to be filled with ice cream. The carton serves the multiple functions of a cup charging rack, a cold storage cup holder, a trade distribution carton, and a disposable retailer's display rack.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,507,668 to H. H. Bridgford discloses a boxlike, folded carton for frozen prepared dough that serves as a receptacle for the dough from its frozen storage state to its eventual baking by the consumer without removing the dough from the receptacle until it is ready to be cooled or to be eaten. The carton consists of a cardboard structure coated along the entire inner surface with a layer of aluminum foil. The cardboard may be of the solid, bleached sulphate type, the aluminum foil having a thickness of about 0.0003 inch.
U.S. Pats. No. 3,619,215 and No. 3,780,187 to J. C. Bard et al. and No. 2,686,129 to O. E. Selferth show "heat and serve" packaging trays for sausage or bacon. The trays are made of heavy aluminum sheet (e.g. 0.004 inch thickness) or of paperboard lined either with metal foil (e.g. aluminum foil) or heat and grease resistant plastic coatings or laminates such as polycarbonates or trimethylpentene polymers.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,088,624 to C. M. Kinghorn et al. shows a tubular container made from spiral wrapped metal foil that serves as a merchandising package for items such as meat, biscuits, or the like and when unwrapped serves as a heating or baking utensil for such itmes. U.S. Pat. No. 3,141,400 to F. C. Powers describes an expandable metal cake pan that serves both as a merchandising container for premixed cake batter and subsequently as the baking container for use by the consumer. U.S. Pat. No. 2,271,921 to J. M. Luker discloses an angel food cake package wherein the metal pan in which the cake was baked serves also as the merchandising package for sale to the consumer. U.S. Pat. No. 3,099,567 to D. H. Wallace et al. is directed to a combination food package, shipping, display and heat exchange container and serving tray for shucked oysters or other bivalves. The tray of this patent is made of heavy gauge thermoplastic material and contains an ice compartment to keep the oysters cold.
None of the above patents shows or suggests the use of a heat resistant paperboard tray having a plurality of openings for an equal number of paper baking liners as a support for said liners during successive steps of pouring batter into the liners, baking, icing and insertion into a sealable merchandising carton.